The title identifies the work's subject as the first ten books of Livy's Ab urbe condita, which relate the expansion of Rome through the end of the Third Samnite War in 293 BCE, although Machiavelli discusses what can be learned from other parts of Roman history, as well.

The madman strategy can be related to Niccolò Machiavelli, who, in his Discourses on Livy ( book 3, chapter 2 ) discusses how it is at times " a very wise thing to simulate madness ".

Xenophon's standing as a political philosopher has been defended in recent times by Leo Strauss, who devoted a considerable part of his philosophic analysis to the works of Xenophon, returning to the high judgment of Xenophon as a thinker expressed by Shaftesbury, Winckelmann, Machiavelli, and John Adams.

Art of War is divided into a preface ( proemio ) and seven books ( chapters ), which take the form of a series of dialogues that take place in the Orti Oricellari, the gardens built in a classical style by Bernardo Rucellai in the 1490s for Florentine aristocrats and humanists to engage in discussion, between Cosimo Rucellai and " Lord Fabrizio Colonna " ( many feel Colonna is a veiled disguise for Machiavelli himself, but this view has been challenged by scholars such as Mansfield ), with other patrizi and captains of the recent Florentine republic: Zanobi Buondelmonti, Battista della Palla and Luigi Alamanni.

Commissioned by the Medici, Machiavelli also wrote the Florentine Histories, the history of the city.

Machiavelli has become infamous for such political advice, ensuring that he would be remembered in history through the adjective, " Machiavellian.

the whole innuendo of the Thucydidean treatment of history agrees with the fundamental postulate of Machiavelli, the supremacy of reason of state.

Even more unusual, rather than simply suggesting caution as a prudent way to try to avoid the worst of bad luck, Machiavelli holds that the greatest princes in history tend to be ones who take more risks, and rise to power through their own labour, virtue, prudence, and particularly by their ability to adapt to changing circumstances.

Bodin's secular attitude to history therefore goes some way to explain his perceived relationship to Machiavelli.

Italian Niccolò Machiavelli in The Discourses was the first modern political theorist to review the history and practices of the Romans in any depth.

Andria ( English: The Girl from Andros ) is a comedy adapted and translated through history by Niccolò Machiavelli ( see Andria ( Machiavelli )), Terence, and Menander.

A critical period in the history of this work's influence is at the end of the Middle Ages, and beginning of modernity, when several authors such as Niccolò Machiavelli, Francis Bacon and Thomas Hobbes, argued forcefully and largely successfully that the medieval Aristotelian tradition in practical thinking had become a great impediment to practical political thinking in their time.

Both were innovative in their approach to history: " Machiavelli and Guicciardini are important transitional figures in the development of historical writing.

Bobbitt traces this perspective of military history via Thomas Hobbes and Niccolò Machiavelli to Thucydides.

Machiavelli and Guicciardini were the chief originators of the science of history.

Machiavelli and Guicciardini may be considered as distinguished historians as well as originators of the science of history founded on observation.

The company has developed many computer games in its history, including Battles of Destiny, Hammer of the Gods, Final Liberation, Machiavelli the Prince, Merchant Prince II, Emperor of the Fading Suns, and Mall Tycoon.

Leo Strauss, an American political philosopher, declared himself more inclined toward the traditional view that Machiavelli was self-consciously a " teacher of evil ," ( even if he was not himself evil ) since he counsels the princes to avoid the values of justice, mercy, temperance, wisdom, and love of their people in preference to the use of cruelty, violence, fear, and deception.

Machiavelli explains repeatedly that religion is man-made, and that the value of religion lies in its contribution to social order and the rules of morality must be dispensed if security required it.

While fear of God can be replaced by fear of the prince, if there is a strong enough prince, Machiavelli felt that having a religion is in any case especially essential to keeping a republic in order.

For Machiavelli, a truly great prince can never be conventionally religious himself, but he should make his people religious if he can.

Machiavelli argued against seeing mere peace and economic growth as worthy aims on their own, if they would lead to what Mansfield calls the " taming of the prince.

Machiavelli was also a realist, arguing that even evil means should be considered if they help to create and preserve a glorious regime.

On the other hand, notes that " even if we were forced to grant that Machiavelli was essentially a patriot or a scientist, we would not be forced to deny that he was a teacher of evil ".

Machiavelli used the Persian empire of Darius III, conquered by Alexander the Great, to illustrate this point and then noted that the Medici, if they think about it, will find this historical example similar to the " kingdom of the Turk " ( Ottoman Empire ) in their time-making this a potentially easier conquest to hold than France would be.

Machiavelli also warns against using auxiliary forces, troops borrowed from an ally, because if they win, the employer is under their favor and if they lose, he is ruined.

In addressing the question of whether it is better to be loved or feared, Machiavelli writes, “ The answer is that one would like to be both the one and the other ; but because it is difficult to combine them, it is far safer to be feared than loved if you cannot be both .” As Machiavelli asserts, commitments made in peace are not always kept in adversity ; however, commitments made in fear are kept out of fear.

In a well-known metaphor, Machiavelli writes that " it is better to be impetuous than cautious, because fortune is a woman ; and it is necessary, if one wants to hold her down, to beat her and strike her down.

Machiavelli is indicating in this passage, as in some others in his works, that Christianity itself was making Italians helpless and lazy concerning their own politics, as if they would leave dangerous rivers un-controlled.

Many philosophers from the Renaissance are today read and remembered, even if often not categorized into a single category, but spread into modern philosophy ( if they fit, especially if oriented towards empiricism and rationalism, like Galileo Galilei or Machiavelli ) or instead put back into the Middle Ages, especially if heavily influenced by esoteric traditions ( like Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, Marsilio Ficino and even Nicholas of Cusa and Giordano Bruno ).

The second step of the argument of these neo-Roman writers, like Machiavelli, was that you have to be a member of a free self-governing civil association, a republic, if you are to enjoy individual liberty.

Machiavelli justifies dedicating the Discourses to his two friends because they deserve to be princes, even if they lack principalities, and he criticizes the custom ( which he had adopted in the Prince ) of dedicating works to men who are princes but do not deserve to be.

Machiavelli also states that Pitti would give sanctuary to any criminal within his walls if they could be of use in their building or decoration.

Machiavelli attributes two episodes to Cesare Borgia that were at least partially executed by his father: the method by which the Romagna was pacified, which Machiavelli describes in chapter VII of The Prince, and the assassination of his captains on New Year's Eve of 1503 in Senigallia.

Believing that people were motivated by self-interest, Niccolò Machiavelli wrote The Prince in 1513 as advice for the city of Florence, Italy.

Despairing of the opportunity to remain directly involved in political matters, after a time Machiavelli began to participate in intellectual groups in Florence and wrote several plays that ( unlike his works on political theory ) were both popular and widely known in his lifetime.

Others have argued that Machiavelli is only a particularly interesting example of trends which were happening around him.

While Xenophon and Plato also described realistic politics, and were closer to Machiavelli than Aristotle was, they, like Aristotle, also saw Philosophy as something higher than politics.

He accused Machiavelli of being an atheist and accused politicians of his time by saying that his works were the " Koran of the courtiers ", that " he is of no reputation in the court of France which hath not Machiavel's writings at the fingers ends ".

While Bruni and Machiavelli used the term to describe the states of Northern Italy, which were not monarchies, the term res publica has a set of interrelated meanings in the original Latin.

His personal favorites were the writings of French President Charles de Gaulle, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and Italian philosopher Niccolò Machiavelli.

Forty-four years after his death, on 7 June 1871, his remains were brought to Florence, and with all the pride, pomp and circumstance of a great national mourning, found their final resting-place beside the monuments of Machiavelli and Alfieri, of Michelangelo and Galileo, in the church of Santa Croce, the pantheon of Italian glory he had celebrated in Dei sepolcri.

The types of political behavior which are discussed with apparent approval by Machiavelli in The Prince were perceived as shocking by contemporaries, and its immorality is still a subject of serious discussion.

Machiavelli generalizes that there were several virtuous Roman ways to hold a newly acquired province, using a republic as an example of how new princes can act:

This chapter shows a low opinion of flatterers ; Machiavelli notes that “ Men are so happily absorbed in their own affairs and indulge in such self-deception that it is difficult for them not to fall victim to this plague ; and some efforts to protect oneself from flatterers involve the risk of becoming despised .” Flatterers were seen as a great danger to a prince, because their flattery could cause him to avoid wise counsel in favor of rash action, but avoiding all advice, flattery or otherwise, was equally bad ; a middle road had to be taken.

Niccolò Machiavelli attempted to address Vegetius ' defects in his L ' arte della Guerra ( Florence, 1521 ), with heavy use of Polybius, Frontinus and Livy, but Justus Lipsius ' accusation that he confused the institutions of diverse periods of the Roman Empire and G. Stewechius ' opinion that the survival of Vegetius ' work led to the loss of his named sources were more typical of the late Renaissance.

The " Ancients " were the Socratic philosophers and their intellectual heirs ; the " Moderns " start with Niccolò Machiavelli.

Niccolò Machiavelli attempted to address Vegetius's defects in his L ' arte della Guerra ( Florence, 1521 ), with heavy use of Polybius, Frontinus and Livy, but Justus Lipsius ' accusation that he confused the institutions of diverse periods of the Roman Empire and G. Stewechius ' opinion that the survival of Vegetius ' work led to the loss of his named sources were more typical of the late Renaissance.

Venetian theologians were described as followers of Machiavelli and Bodin by Giovanni Amato.

In fifteenth-century Italy, the condottieri were masterful lords of war ; during the wars in Lombardy, Machiavelli observed:

The Swiss, with their head-down attack in huge columns with the long pike, refusal to take prisoners, and consistent record of victory, were greatly feared and admired — for instance, Machiavelli addresses their system of combat at length in The Prince.

Historian Mark Phillips states that all subsequent Florentine accounts of the tyrannical regime of Walter VI of Brienne — including those by Leonardo Bruni and Niccolò Machiavelli — were based upon the primary source of Villani's Cronica.

Montesquieu and Machiavelli were also of this opinion.

It was for Florentine public celebrations that Intermedii came into their own ; several were organised by Machiavelli when he was part of the government of the Republic of Florence in the early 16th century, and the returning Medici adopted a policy of keeping the aristocracy occupied by involving them in productions.